PHILIP ROLLOS
Goldsmith Philip Rollos was one of the most successful and celebrated Huguenot goldsmiths in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Although little is known about his early life and career, Rollos appears in the denization list of 1691 and obtained his freedom from the Goldsmith’s Company in 1697. He served as Subordinate Goldsmith for King William III and Queen Anne and was patronized by the Crown through the early years of the reign of George I.

THE BROWNLOW SILVER
The Brownlow and Cust families were known to be voracious collectors of silver and patrons of renowned silversmiths. A 1721 inventory of Belton House lists 8,900 ounces of silver and silver-gilt, valued at £2,422. This extraordinary collection was later expanded upon by Brownlow Cust, 1st Baron Brownlow (1744-1807), who notably acquired 4,000 ounces of plate upon his appointment as Speaker of the House of Commons in 1761. The plate collection at Belton was always admired, as shown by a newspaper report of a ball at Belton in 1833, ‘The decorations of the table were exceedingly beautiful and the display of costly plate superb’, A Tinniswood, Belton House, London, 1992, p. 43.